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Thank you so much to all of you lovely folk who have not only ordered from me this holiday season but throughout the year, it really makes my heart sing when someone orders from my small business. I started Moozle nearly 10 years ago when I made a 4 sideed teepee with a cottage style cross bar window complete with a window box and trailing flowers for my tiny daughter as a magical enchanted space for her to explore and feel safe in, I never thought back then that so many people around the world would end up with one of my teepees helping form many of their precious family memories.

When I started Moozle I had done my research and no one else was creating anything similar, there was just 1 page of kids teepee tents on Etsy and they were 5 sided with no window, no flags, no applique work…and now, well, there are 107+ pages of ‘kids teepee’ on Etsy, mostly 4 sided with cross bar windows just like my original design.

It is time for a change, I can’t compete with mass produced (for that is what Etsy has become) tents, made in the far East, Eastern Europe and Russia, there are too many people selling the same items to a world of weary consumers…I want to believe in sustainability and fairtrade but people are lead by their pockets more than their conscience so I feel betrayed and saddened by the whole industry…we want the best for our children right? But if you don’t invest in the best for the future of the planet it’s all empty.

How can a teepee tent for €24 be possible? Someone (and the planet, mass production, slave wages, unsustainably sourced wood, cheap cotton grown using chemicals on land felled for farming, shipping containers polluting the oceans around the world) is being exploited that’s for sure.

So. What is the answer? Buy well. Buy ethically (weather from me or another small business I don’t mind). Choose sustainability. Shop local. Shop small – avoid the big brands, they only care about shareholders and profit margins…and they often don’t pay their taxes so are not investing in your childrens future.

Spend well and speak with your wallet, you have power there. Consumer power. Use it wisely.

So I thank you, from the bottom of my heart, all of you who choose Moozle, a small family business, producing locally, sourcing sustainably and making each and every tent with love and care for you and your children x

I’ll just let the photos do the talking I think. It’s July. There are flowers.

Why not use some to decorate your Moozle teepee tent and take some pretty pics with your kiddos whilst your at it? Mine were actually outside playing on the swing whilst I took these but maybe you’ll have more luck!

Tag your photos on Instagram with @katemoozle for a chance to get yours featured.

To make the garland I just pinned the flowers we picked to a strip of fabric and tied it around the teepee, it doesn’t have to be any more permanent than that as the fresh flowers wont last long anyway.

We are so happy to see the blossom and have lots of exciting projects on the go…including a BIG plan for the little dolls house in these photos. It’s part way through it’s make-over then it’s getting some very special items made to go inside it, more of this to come soon.

The teepee in the photographs is a new design with limited edition Laura Ashley Home fabric, only 4 of these have been made in the MIDI size so if it ticks your boxes you’d better grab one quickly here before they are gone forever!

The April in blossom photo is part of an on-going challenge I’ve given myself (lets see if I can last the year), you can see the other photos so far over on my instagram account.

Hello and thanks for visiting, I am really, really late with a Christmas post (ahem) but… it did happen, it was fun but it was also very busy and whilst I do like keeping a blog it kind of falls be the wayside when I have orders to fulfill and a family to keep.

A huge heartfelt thank you to all of the lovely people who ordered a Moozle Teepee / accessories this past year, it really is fantastic that you find Moozle and order from us, as there is such a lot of competition out there now. We are a small family run business in a sea of sharks (it feels like sometimes). It is very important to me to keep my business sustainable and as low impact environmentally as possible, I’m never going to be a millionaire running this business as I will not sell out, I won’t manufacture in China, I won’t buy nonsustainable (cheap) hardwood for my teepee poles, I employ local people to help me out and use biodegrable packaging where possible (looking into eco parcel tape).

I hope and trust you agree with my business ethics and help me to spread the word on my little empire.

I’m going to share some of the comments that have been coming in over the last few weeks, best wishes, Kate.

Hi Kate, I just wanted to truly thank you for the beautiful teepee which arrived in plenty of time for my daughters birthday. Her birthday was on the Tuesday & your teepee arrived the Thursday before!! So efficient! I really didn’t think it would arrive in time, let alone early! Very happy customers! The quality & workmanship is fabulous & your service is second to none. Thanks again. Cheers, Hanna, Tasmania, Australia.

Amazing quality and construction, lots of little last-minute add-ons that seller accommodated with a smile, super fast shipping and it even arrived through customs nearly a week ahead of schedule – thank you so much!! 🙂 Kate, Los Angeles, USA.

Ordered this for my four-year old’s room in our new place, to make him feel at home. It is beautifully crafted, and the materials are all top quality. Kate is a pleasure to work with, and handled a mailing mix-up with grace and speed. I will definitely buy from her again when our baby graduates from a crib to a bed!Dorothy, Washington DC, USA.

A little boy here turned 4 last weekend so we had a woodland themed party to celebrate, lots of woodland themed party food topped off with a toadstool cake.

The kids loved seeing the party food, lots of ooohs and aaaahhh’s 🙂 The favours were individual chocolates shaped as toadstools or hedgehogs in clear celophane with ribbon on – I didn’t manage to photograph them as I was too busy keeping an eye on everyone! We did an Autumn craft project of threading lots of pine cones, conkers (horse chestnuts), leaves, acorn cups and other woodland bits onto string – they actually look really lovey – I’ll post some pics of ours when I get them off my phone!

For the cake, I used 3 layers of Victoria sponge to make the top of the toadstool, glued together with strawberry jam and whipped cream and sort of sculped it into shape, then covered with a light layer of butter icing before draping and molding the rolled out fondant icing over the top. It took about an hour to decorate the cake (putting the butter icing in the fridge for a few minutes between each stage).

I’m sneaking in this customer photo too as the tree kind of goes with the woodland theme (see what I did there), thank you to Lianne for the super photo. See more customer pics on the Moozle instagram feed here.

Hello, hello! I thought it was about time I did a little kids room up-date since that last one about a year ago on the Apartment therapy blog.

I’ve been so busy working on the Moozle teepees but I have finally registered the bunk bed design (I’ve had trouble with other companines stealing my images and dsigns and re-selling knock-off versions so I’m taking extra percautions) and so I’m finally showing them, soon to be listed on the Etsy shop – woohoo – sorry to all of you who have been waiting!!!

Some of our favourite story books here (especially the Jackie Morris Tell me a Dragon as she is based in our home county of Pembrokeshire). The little green and white guy sticking out of the bed caddy is an original Moozle plushy in Helen Rawliinson’s Shapes and Things fabric. Helen is a textile and lighting designer based in London (and a good friend of mine), check out her work, it’s lovely.

Some shout outs now to some lovely fellow Etsy designers I’ve purchased from in the past (I’m a fan of supporting small businesses and Etsy is a great place for finding beautiful handmade and vintage items).

Top left: Little Red Riding hood, this was a pdf pattern I bought for my mum – didn’t she do a great job of making her?

Our sweet boy Dexie turned three recently, if you ask him what he wants to be when he is older he will say ‘a teddy bear’ so naturally he wanted a teddy bear cake for his birthday, we somehow managed to squeeze a few pirates into the festivities as well, just for good measure!

Here’s one of me getting some cuddle action with my boy on the sofa after the fun of the party. Nice. Happy times.

Above are a couple of pics from the tour but hop on over to the fab AT blog to see the rest. Lots if lovely comments coming in which are great to read, so nice to know people like my home interior style, it is strange to think that people around the globe are peaking into our home (actually, I wont think about that too much!). I’ve just been happily pottering around with funny vintage bits and bobs and just carrying on with my little ‘house’ projects and then low-and-behold they are all over the internet, mmmmmmmm.

Lots of questions coming in about the bunk bed tent (photographed above) which is great as it is my new product in development! Soon to be available in different designs on the Moozle website the one above will perfectly fit the SVÄRTA/TROMSO Ikea bunk bed frame which seems to have a different name in different regions.

Hello! I am VERY excited, we are going to have our Moozle home featured as a house tour on the amazing Apartment Therapy blog! Whoop whoop!

It was great to meet the lovely Bre from AT who came to photograph our home in Amsterdam on Wednesday, we had a fun time trying to shoot pics around the kids who are on summer hols – thanks for being so easy going Bre and thanks for taking this lovely shot of me and the kiddos.

I just found this (tiny) photo of Dolly’s old bedroom in Pembrokeshire, this is the very first teepee I made and where all this teepee madness stems from! She looks so little here, a cute little thing in beanie and wellie boots. There are lots more photos of past teepee designs on the Moozle Flickr pages. This design went on to be called ‘vintage flowers’ and has been featured in lots of kids design and interiors blogs.

What do you do with the blank space where the fireplace should go? You cover the wall and the gaping hole of the flue with some rather lovely vintage and designer wallpaper picks that’s what!

Much better to look at now. I used wallpapers from some of my favorite’s, Josef Frank, Ferm Living,Designers Guild, Orla Kiely as well as some vintage pieces. I’m going to do a whole wall with larger, different sized pieces one day soon, just need to collect the right papers and find the right space. That was my Friday evening in, time well spent.

Have you heard of Decomyplace yet? it is an online community where people showcase their homes around the world. If you’d like a peak into the Moozle home in Amsterdam come and have a little look here.

Want to find a teepee tent like the one in this photo? Have a look here Moozle.

I finally finished Dexter’s cot bumper at the weekend, it has been hanging around my desk for a few weeks now waiting for me to find 20 minutes here, 20 minutes there in between sewing up the play teepees, and this is the result (sorry about the grainy photos, the light was fading), I hope the fox doesn’t scare Dexter, it doesn’t seem to.

The lion cushion is by my friend Helen Rawlinson, the tall fox is called Mr. Morris and was a birthday gift form my lovely friend the very talented graphic designer Anna Kortekass, the folk guitar is an Etsy find by June Craft and the very smart looking knitted teddy in the school uniform was a gift my friend and textile designer Rachael Howard found at a craft fair. You can check out some gorgeous pics of Rae’s inspiring home over on Helen‘s super blog here.

Well, Dolly (aged 4 and a half and a little bit more) got into bed on Sunday morning for a cuddle and announced that she was going to mop the floors and clean the windows to make the place look really pretty (which was a bit of a shock, but glad to know the thought was there, I must be rubbing off on her), anyways… for one reason or another (I blame the hail clouds obscuring the Spring-cleaning-sunshine and dampening our good intentions) we made these funny bunnies instead.

Ok, so I am pretty sure the bunting bug I caught last week is finally on it’s way out, I just couldn’t resist making this rather Dutch version for my friend’s new baby, I’m quite excited about giving it to her over coffee tomorrow morning. I can’t decide whether to list bunting on my Moozle and Etsy sites or not, maybe I’ll just make some special buntings to go with special teepee tents – you’d better email and hassle me if you want some!

The cat print is by Ingela P Arrhenius and the rabbit with the mustache is by Andrew Bannecker you can see these plus some other illustrative delights over on my Pinterest illustration board, there are some real gems on there so go and check it out.

I seem to have caught some kind of bunting bug this week – here’s some I made with some over runs of the printed teepee tent panels – would go great with the puddle grey teepee – if only they weren’t all sold out at the moment – doh!

The fab 1960’s wooden jigsaw puzzle board is for sale on Moozle here. The lovely boy and girl illustrations in the bottom left picture were gifts from my very talented friend, British illustrator Tracy Worral.

I made some bunting today inspired by the teepee tent design I finished yesterday. I’ve been meaning to make some bunting for ages and finally found some time today – about time! Here’s a pic of the teepee it goes with, you can buy it from my Etsy page, all in all a productive week!

Rainy day in Amsterdam = happy campers 🙂 The kids play in their teepee tent, we don’t have much space so it just gets picked up at the end of the day and put in the cupboard, still tied at the top! This is one of the first teepees I made and it is still going strong, more designs like this to be added to the shop soon.

How do you like the new project? I’ve been collecting old tapestries at flea markets whenever I see them and was recently given some that my Great Grandmother made, so finally I had enough for my pouffe project. I purposely didn’t cut into them so they can be easily unpicked and re-project’d at any time! The Bauble Lights are a new acquisition too.

Huge thanks today to the lovely Cynthia for allowing me (and my assistant/model Dexter) to take up a chunk of her day and use her stylish home as the location to shoot not one but two tents! Cynthia is a super slick interiors designer and renovation manager specialising in bathrooms and kitchens, it’s a shame I didn’t photograph the tents in her beautiful bathroom, but the bedrooms were pretty lovely too!

He opened the flower press 🌸🌸🌸29089424_344072009414710_7845891487186288640_n

About last night...came downstairs to this, clear evidence of our wild and glamorous Friday nights...Scrabble with the kiddos 😀Yesterday Mr. Moozle spent about 4 hours sanding the dark varnish off this table, today 'we' want to sand, prime and paint the bench....but right now it's -2 and snowing ❄️❄️❄️ you can't see it in this picture but it really is!28764844_131806644319309_6926235909897584640_n

I'm playing elf on the shelf with Ziggy Stardust....⚡️⚡️⚡️ happy Friday to you x28753469_1845085568836835_7841984853653323776_n

My breakfast game is stratospheric today ✨my yoga game today...not so much due to a dodgy neck...so I'm going comfort eat myself well. vegan porridge with ginger and cinnamon topped with mango, blueberries, almonds, coconut blocks and maple syrup. Oh and a few rose petals because...it's Thursday? Who cares, it tastes flipping good. @mightymech you should have stuck around girlfriend, can't believe it's been a week already 😮28764926_387996431673876_1972082298937409536_n